Fender Tone Master Pro: Episode IV - A New Hope

[CBHScott]

*after the weekend*

WHY I HAVE DECIDED TO GO BACK TO TUBE AMPS EXCLUSIVELY (AGAIN [AGAIN])

 

[ian_dissonance]

That guy needs a vacation.

 

[Tritium3H]

These were some of the best tones I have heard from this guy (Cordy)…yet his positive thoughts and comments on the TMP seem like they came through gritted teeth, i.e., begrudgingly.

 

[GTR37]

That guy needs a vacation.

100% the daily click bait on every platform has just become obnoxious
Hopefully he will enjoy the holidays and a Yule log
And take some time away from the computer

 

[sashimi]

These were some of the best tones I have heard from this guy (Cordy)…yet his positive thoughts and comments on the TMP seem like they came through gritted teeth, i.e., begrudgingly.

His videos when the TMP first came out were extremely critical, but the tones he got out of it were great. Seems like he just didn’t want to say anything positive about it. I think he even kind of admitted it was because Fender didn’t send him one for free.

 

[Frodebro]

Bought a TMP last week to see how it has progressed since launch. I was hoping for something that was a bit more compact than my FM9 for band use, and the UI seemed to lend itself to much easier on the fly tweaks at rehearsals.

Long story short, the cons still outweigh the benefits so I’m not going to keep it. Mainly functionality (still no global volume control from an expression pedal), but also CPU limitations. I tried to replicate the kitchen sink preset I use for most of the night with the band, and I couldn’t fit it all into one preset. And it’s not some crazy complex chain with a lot of blocks, either.

The amp sounds ranged from excellent (on cleaner stuff) to pretty good (Marshall), the reverbs are great, and the effects themselves are overall also very good.

At least I can say I gave it a fair shake, and can also recommend it as a good unit if you’re looking for what it excels at, which is very good sounds and a very simple UI.

 

[AlbertA]

Long story short, the cons still outweigh the benefits so I’m not going to keep it. Mainly functionality (still no global volume control from an expression pedal), but also CPU limitations. I tried to replicate the kitchen sink preset I use for most of the night with the band, and I couldn’t fit it all into one preset. And it’s not some crazy complex chain with a lot of blocks, either.

I'm curious, what would your kitchen sink preset contain?

 

[Frodebro]

I'm curious, what would your kitchen sink preset contain?

Off the top of my head, it's a wah (Exp3), compressor, volume block (Exp2), phaser, drive, spring reverb, amp, cab, gate, chorus, flanger, delay, rotary, trem, reverb, and Exp 1 for global volume. The CPU runs at around 70-74% IIRC. I can cover everything we do with this one preset.

 

[Jarick]

I also couldn’t make a kitchen sink preset especially with the new lexicon delay. You really have to do the preset thing. Apparently half the cpu is dedicated to loading the next preset gapless so you need a different approach.

It’s funny for so long we had to do scenes and kitchen sinks because preset switching gaps were so bad. Now we have gapless switching and struggle to go back to that mindset!

 

[Tritium3H]

Bought a TMP last week to see how it has progressed since launch. I was hoping for something that was a bit more compact than my FM9 for band use, and the UI seemed to lend itself to much easier on the fly tweaks at rehearsals.

Long story short, the cons still outweigh the benefits so I’m not going to keep it. Mainly functionality (still no global volume control from an expression pedal), but also CPU limitations. I tried to replicate the kitchen sink preset I use for most of the night with the band, and I couldn’t fit it all into one preset. And it’s not some crazy complex chain with a lot of blocks, either.

The amp sounds ranged from excellent (on cleaner stuff) to pretty good (Marshall), the reverbs are great, and the effects themselves are overall also very good.

At least I can say I gave it a fair shake, and can also recommend it as a good unit if you’re looking for what it excels at, which is very good sounds and a very simple UI.

I also couldn’t make a kitchen sink preset especially with the new lexicon delay. You really have to do the preset thing. Apparently half the cpu is dedicated to loading the next preset gapless so you need a different approach.

It’s funny for so long we had to do scenes and kitchen sinks because preset switching gaps were so bad. Now we have gapless switching and struggle to go back to that mindset!

Correct...I think that hits the nail on the proverbial head, Jarick.

I think this MAY be a case of “damned if they do, damned if they don't", when it comes to choosing an architecture that allowed for seamless/gapless preset switching. I think it is somewhat ironic, that the whole "Scenes" methodology -- which also allows a "kitchen sink" type of effects block signal chain -- was really a "work around" for not being able to allow true seamless/gapless PRESET switching. Then, Fender decides to give us that...but now you are not able to load as many (non-active) effects blocks into a so-called kitchen sink preset. The obvious answer, with the TMP, is you don't necessarily "need" the Scenes/Snapshots approach, as you can simply program a separate preset to satisfy that particular configuration...and be able to instantly switch to and fro, via a preset change.

 

[metropolis_4]

I haven’t tried to make a “kitchen sink” preset since the introduction of gapless preset switching.

I much prefer the approach of organizing my tones by creating presets based on specific amp tones and Scenes as different variations of effects around each amp tone.

Then I either set up switches to jump between different amps (like a multi-amp rig), or use Songs/Setlists to create groupings of tones for each song.

It’s a different way of thinking about organization, but I find it so much better than traditional presets

 

[Jarick]

Perfect world you could do both...I've seen requests to open up the DSP so you can get more stuff inside a single preset. Dunno if they could do that but it would likely be insanely powerful if they could (maybe like a QC?).

One of the arguments for kitchen sink presets would be to have one preset per song if you need a lot of amps/effects. Then if you want to swap out something like a different amp or cab you're only touching one preset instead of a bunch. As it is I'm not sure how good the TMP would be at different presets for different parts of a song...I think there may be some limitations too in terms of how setlists can be arranged on the fly.

Probably not a big deal for most, could be a big deal for some.

There's definitely opportunities with the TMP, I think there could be a bit more flexibility with the footswitching too. I'd like to see the ability to do 8 presets on a page or 4 presets and 4 effects/scenes. That would go along with swapping out the looper for a bank toggle on the mode switch (i.e. hold for preset navigation).

Still, it would be cool to see others revisiting the TMP. I had that mindset earlier this year picking one up and was very pleasantly surprised.

 

[metropolis_4]

Perfect world you could do both...I've seen requests to open up the DSP so you can get more stuff inside a single preset. Dunno if they could do that but it would likely be insanely powerful if they could (maybe like a QC?).

One of the arguments for kitchen sink presets would be to have one preset per song if you need a lot of amps/effects. Then if you want to swap out something like a different amp or cab you're only touching one preset instead of a bunch. As it is I'm not sure how good the TMP would be at different presets for different parts of a song...I think there may be some limitations too in terms of how setlists can be arranged on the fly.

Probably not a big deal for most, could be a big deal for some.

There's definitely opportunities with the TMP, I think there could be a bit more flexibility with the footswitching too. I'd like to see the ability to do 8 presets on a page or 4 presets and 4 effects/scenes. That would go along with swapping out the looper for a bank toggle on the mode switch (i.e. hold for preset navigation).

Still, it would be cool to see others revisiting the TMP. I had that mindset earlier this year picking one up and was very pleasantly surprised.

Personally I think every company needs to ditch the old Helix paradigm of “top row does one thing bottom row does another” and follow the Fractal approach of letting us choose what each individual switch does

 

[AZG]

I also couldn’t make a kitchen sink preset especially with the new lexicon delay. You really have to do the preset thing. Apparently half the cpu is dedicated to loading the next preset gapless so you need a different approach.

It’s funny for so long we had to do scenes and kitchen sinks because preset switching gaps were so bad. Now we have gapless switching and struggle to go back to that mindset!

Sadly this is what keeps me from trying a TMP. Managing multiple changes across multiple presets is messy and time consuming IMO. I would much rather have all the DSP available for my kitchen sink presets and live with a gap on preset changes between songs if needed. At least Fender could make it optional.

 

[Jarick]

Personally I think every company needs to ditch the old Helix paradigm of “top row does one thing bottom row does another” and follow the Fractal approach of letting us choose what each individual switch does

I actually really dislike programming the Fractal footswitches. It's one of the things that you practically can't do on the unit. But even the Fender is a lot more tedious than something like the Helix to assign switches to effects. It sounds dumb but I just counted 7 different screen presses to assign out an effect. I think Helix is what, select the effect and then touch/hold the switch and click OK to assign?

Although maybe I'm really overthinking it. I just saved a copy of a basic clean preset I made yesterday to a new spot, added a compressor out front, micro pitch detune and stereo delay in the back, swapped the room reverb to a hall, and assigned those four effects to the top row of slots all in about a minute.

Maybe there's something like a "Quick Assign" where you press and hold the Footswitch Assign icon and then you can press the foot switch and then tap on the effect. Always a better way to do things.

 

[metropolis_4]

I actually really dislike programming the Fractal footswitches. It's one of the things that you practically can't do on the unit. But even the Fender is a lot more tedious than something like the Helix to assign switches to effects. It sounds dumb but I just counted 7 different screen presses to assign out an effect. I think Helix is what, select the effect and then touch/hold the switch and click OK to assign?

Although maybe I'm really overthinking it. I just saved a copy of a basic clean preset I made yesterday to a new spot, added a compressor out front, micro pitch detune and stereo delay in the back, swapped the room reverb to a hall, and assigned those four effects to the top row of slots all in about a minute.

Maybe there's something like a "Quick Assign" where you press and hold the Footswitch Assign icon and then you can press the foot switch and then tap on the effect. Always a better way to do things.

My main focus for footswitching is to have exactly the level of control I need during a live show. I’d rather spend a little more time in programming ahead of time to make life easier during the show. I want the gear to disappear so I can focus on the music

So for me, give me a set of footswitches and let me determine exactly what each individual switch does at all times, so I can create the exact live control I want.


By the way, over the 5 or so years I was using Fractal I did almost all of my footswitch programming on device. The only thing I ever used the desktop editor for was firmware updates (and loading IRs before DynaCabs came out).

 

[Frodebro]

The lack of horsepower wasn’t the solitary dealbreaker for me, if that was my only gripe I would keep it.

 

[Tritium3H]

The lack of horsepower wasn’t the solitary dealbreaker for me, if that was my only gripe I would keep it.

At the end of the day, if it didn’t work for your needs, that’s all that counts. I guess some of us were gently pushing back against the “lack of horsepower”…which decidedly isn’t the case. Simply (or not so simply), Fender opted to deploy its powerful architecture so as to reserve a considerable portion of its 8-core ARM processing capacity to handle preset loading quickly in the background, without interrupting the audio path.

It is quite likely that, if their design team instead desired to forgo the seamless preset switching capability, they could have instead implemented a Scenes-based “everything AND the kitchen sink” type of signal path…in which many more (but inactive) FX blocks could be assigned to a given signal path.

 

[ChordInversion]

At the end of the day, if it didn’t work for your needs, that’s all that counts. I guess some of us were gently pushing back against the “lack of horsepower”…which decidedly isn’t the case. Simply (or not so simply), Fender opted to deploy its powerful architecture so as to reserve a considerable portion of its 8-core ARM processing capacity to handle preset loading quickly in the background, without interrupting the audio path.

It is quite likely that, if their design team instead desired to forgo the seamless preset switching capability, they could have instead implemented a Scenes-based “everything AND the kitchen sink” type of signal path…in which many more (but inactive) FX blocks could be assigned to a given signal path.

And honestly, as someone who is keeping both the FM9T and the TMP, I like the idea of manufacturers taking different paths to satisfy players with different needs. A world in which the top modelers are all very minor variations on "everyone must do this" themes (like capture) is one that bores me. Fender prioritized seamless switching between less 'kitchen sink' presets. They also, as of this latest update, prioritized innovative synth capability. Good. I hope the others don't follow suit. Vive la difference!

 

[Frodebro]

At the end of the day, if it didn’t work for your needs, that’s all that counts. I guess some of us were gently pushing back against the “lack of horsepower”…which decidedly isn’t the case. Simply (or not so simply), Fender opted to deploy its powerful architecture so as to reserve a considerable portion of its 8-core ARM processing capacity to handle preset loading quickly in the background, without interrupting the audio path.

It is quite likely that, if their design team instead desired to forgo the seamless preset switching capability, they could have instead implemented a Scenes-based “everything AND the kitchen sink” type of signal path…in which many more (but inactive) FX blocks could be assigned to a given signal path.

I completely understand. Though the processing power was actually a minor nitpick, it was one of many that added up to "No Bueno For Me."

And I'm not saying it's a bad unit, because overall it's actually pretty decent for what it was intended to be. Fender is targeting a fairly specific demographic here, and I guess I'm too far into "power user" territory at this point. I utilize the expression pedals in the FM9 for many things that are simply not possible on the TMP, and they're things a "normal" user wouldn't even consider.

One example is the preset I made for Cheap Sunglasses. I have a scene for the middle section (the Wooo Woooo bit) where an expression pedal is controlling pitch, volume, and both delay and reverb mixes. That's the kind of goofy shit I do with my gear.